Studia Ucrainica Varsoviensia

The Story of Liberation from Fear in Oksana Zabuzhko’s Fiction

2025, 13, No. 13

Tetiana Grebeniuk

0000-0003-1910-5411

University of Warsaw, Institute of Ukrainian Studies, Department of Cultural and Ukrainian Studies

DOI

10.31338/2299-7237suv.13.6

Publication date

25.06.2025

Publishing model

open access

License type

CC BY 4.0 Int.

Field

Social sciences, Humanities

Discipline

literary studies, psychology

Language of publication

Polish, English

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Article

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Abstract

In the fiction by Oksana Zabuzhko, one of the most well-known contemporary Ukrainian writers, trauma manifests itself through characters’ state of fear that hinders both their individual self-actualization, decolonization of Ukraine and gaining the political agency by Ukrainian people. Approaching Zabuzhko’s fiction as an author’s hypertext we can trace the unfolding of the cross-cutting plot of the protagonists’ fight with the totalitarian system that uses fear to paralyze them. The development of this plot reflects gradual changes in Ukrainians’ mindset since the 1980s until now, from representation of fear as permanent society’s state (in the short story 'Sister, Sister') to observation that the post-Maidan generation does not experience this fear anymore (in the story 'No Entry to the Performance Hall after the Third Bell'). The aim of this article is to analyze the forms of artistic representation of Oksana Zabuzhko’s plot of liberation from the totalitarian fear in different periods of her creative life.

Keywords:

Bibliography

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